Heart Conditions (The Breakup Doctor Series Book 3) Read Online Free Page B

avoid the paps.
    “How in the hell did you do that?” I said, staring at my image wonderingly in my full-length mirror. “I look amazing. But casual amazing.”
    Sasha preened as she made a minute adjustment of my pushed-up jacket sleeves. “You have your forte; I have mine. Now you can call that jackass and arrange to meet.”
    She was dead right—since I’d learned to stop running from my feelings, stop pushing them down and pretending everything was okay, I knew I needed to see Michael to finally close that chapter of my life. And this was the image I wanted to present to the man who’d left me devastated: this confident, polished, poised woman in the mirror. The woman, in fact, I hoped I was well on my way to actually becoming.
    I turned away from my reflection to face her. “Thanks, Sash. I’m sorry I kept you away from whatever you and Stu had planned today.”
    Sasha’s hair cascaded over her face as she bent her head to closely examine my shoes.
    “No big deal,” she said faintly.
    I frowned. Something about her tone was odd. “Everything’s okay with you two, isn’t it?” Although I’d come to admit the two made a bizarrely excellent (if sex-crazed) couple, since they’d gotten together I lived in constant low-grade terror of what would happen if they ever broke up. My brother and my best friend were the two people closest to me in the world—halves of my heart. I couldn’t imagine being divided between them.
    “No, we’re good. The two of us are just fine.”
    Something niggled at me in the way she said it, but she had raised her face up to meet my gaze, and her expression was placid.
    “You realize you’ve been Breakup Doctoring me all day long,” I said instead.
    She grinned and gave me a wink. “Where do you think I learned it?”
    “So…you think I should call him now? While I look like this?”
    “I think”—Sasha took me by the shoulders and turned me to face my reflection, meeting my eyes in the mirror as she stood beside me—“that you can look like this anytime you want to. If you’d just put a little effort into it once in a while.” I stepped on her toe with one of my platforms, and she smacked my arm, then squeezed it. “And that you should call him whenever you feel ready to face him and get the answers you deserve.”
    I nodded, wrapping an arm around her waist and giving her a one-armed hug. “Thanks, pal,” I whispered, my throat tight. “I will.”
    One side of Sasha’s mouth lifted in a sadistic smile. “But take your time. First you should make that bastard squirm and let him see what it’s like to live in limbo for a while.”

three

      
    Mental unrest was no excuse for missing Sunday-night dinner at my parents’ house. Actually, there was no excuse short of death, so although I suggested that Sasha hang out and we’d drive over together later, she left shortly after I removed all my new finery.
    “Stu and I have some stuff to get done today,” she said, retrieving her Brahmin bag from my entry table.
    “Oh—well, why don’t I come help?”
    “No, no,” she said quickly. “This isn’t fun stuff.”
    “I don’t mind,” I said, grabbing my own purse. “You spent your whole day firefighting my problems; let me at least return the favor.”
    But she tugged my purse out of my hands and set it gently back on my hall table. “Brook, really—it’s couple stuff, okay?”
    “Oh.” I knew my expression must register the crestfallen feeling in my stomach, though I tried to fight it. Every now and then these little reminders that Stu and Sasha now had a special relationship that no longer included me still stung, but I shoved a smile onto my face and gave an exaggerated eye roll. “I get it. It’s sexytime, right? You’ve only done it twice so far today?” Sasha loved grossing me out with tales of her and my brother’s busy, acrobatic sex life, but I’d started beating her to the punch.
    She gave a thin smile. “Something like